Abstract
We analysed a cohort of patients with normotensive pulmonary embolism (PE) in order to assess whether combining echocardiography and biomarkers with the pulmonary embolism severity index (PESI) improves the risk-stratification in comparison to the PESI alone.
The PESI was calculated in normotensive patients with PE who also underwent echocardiography and assays of troponin and brain natriuretic peptide. Thirty-day adverse outcome was defined as death, recurrent PE or shock.
529 patients were included, 25 (4.7%; 95% confidence interval (CI), 3.2% to 6.9%) had at least one outcome event. The proportion of patients with adverse events increased from 2.1% in PESI class I-II to 8.4% in PESI class III-IV, and to 14.3% in PESI class V (P<0.001). In PESI class I-II, the rate of outcome events was significantly higher in patients with abnormal values of biomarkers or right ventricular (RV) dilatation. In multivariate analysis, the PESI (Odds Ratio (OR) III-IV versus I-II: 3.1; 95%CI, 1.2-8.3; OR V versus I-II: 5.5; 95%CI, 1.5–25.5) and echocardiography (RV/left ventricular ratio, OR for an increase of 0.1: 1.3; 95%CI, 1.1–1.5) were independent predictors of an adverse outcome.
In patients with normotensive PE, biomarkers and echocardiography provided additional prognostic information to the PESI.
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